The year is 2010. Worldwide political tensions are at a breaking point when a commercial airliner is shot down by a U.S. missile over the Middle East, killing all aboard. The U.S. government claims no involvement, and dispatches Agent Michael Thorton to investigate and bring those responsible to justice.

The main themes of the game is that of deception and betrayal. Treachery is common, as expected in a spy and espionage thriller, and there are lies upon lies and wheels within wheels. Everyone has secrets and everyone's agenda is suspect. Finding who to trust and who is manipulating the player is integral to the game's storyline.

One of the more interesting features of the game is its perk system. You get rewarded with perks that boost your stats slightly for your actions during the game... regardless of what those actions are. That's right, you can get perks for doing virtually anything, which means that the game does not overly reward or punish the player for making specific gameplay or plot choices. There's no "good" or "bad," just results.

Examples

Sis' locket never comes up again after Mike shows it to Albatros. Although intentional, in general, G22's objectives are never explained. It's implied that they're a previous iteration of Alpha Protocol, but that doesn't explain what they're doing now, nor why they're doing it, beyond a general "fighting against Halbech" objective.

The Locket is a representation of Saint George. In the tale of Saint George and the dragon, a King (Albatross) unwillingly offers his daughter (Sis) to a dragon only for her to be saved by Saint George. Depending on whether he kills or saves Sis, Michael could either be the dragon or the saint.

The meeting with Albatross in Moscow hints that they're interested in preserving the status quo, or at very least have a vested interest in preventing Halbech's "mistake" turning into World War III.

The game never explains the mysteries behind the NSA agent in Rome; he is clueless to the passphrase and rather gullible if you attempt to play your cards right (implying he is an Unwitting Pawn), but later conversations with Marburg and Leland if you kill the agent ("You added an NSA agent to your bodycount in Rome") confirm that he was one (perhaps unwilling, or perhaps the passphrase simply hadn't reached the agent at that time).

There is a lot of extra reading you can do in the game with emails you get forwarded from Mina, email systems you can hack in some levels, and dossier intel that is left (presumably intentionally) ambiguous and to try to flesh out the game's realism with the espionage community.

Above Good and Evil: A gameplay version of this— there are no "right" or "wrong" choices to make, so to speak. Play non-lethally, Kill 'em All, act politely, act like a jerk, get caught a lot, be stealthy, bang every woman you can or abstain— nearly every action you take has some minor or major gameplay perk that pops up during the course of your game.

Action Insurance Gag: If Steven Heck is your handler for the last mission then you'll get this exchange when your evac chopper is blown up:

Heck: Hey, Mike. Good news, bad news.

Mike: What's the bad news?

Heck: That chopper was our ride out of here.

Mike: Great. What's the good news?

Heck: I paid extra for the insurance package!

Addiction Powered: Konstantin Brayko ingests enormous amounts of cocaine to power up and fight Mike Thorton, allowing Brayko to do things like run incredibly fast and be temporarily bulletproof. You can thwart this by having Steven Heck sabotage his supply.

Subverted with Omen Deng, in the sense that he's not actually evil - he's a good guy.

Ali Shaheed as well. He's so affable you almost forget that he blew up a passenger plane full of innocents.

Sergei Surkov is a remarkably nice guy for an ex-KGB agent who lies to Mike's face and sends him after Brayko just to take out his competition.

For all his politeness and friendly demeanor, Hong Shi did deal with Al-Samaad, executed his second-in-command for questioning his orders about the aforementioned deal, and had an NSB agent tortured to death for approaching the Triads for security during an exchange.

A.K.A.-47: Played straight. For instance, a gun that clearly looks like a Glock is a 5.7mm pistol manufactured by "Rittergruppen". What looks like a FN Five-Seven is a 9mm pistol instead, manufactured by "Samael". And those two are only the beginning.

Altum Videtur: Latin shows up a couple of times. First off, Alpha Protocol has a Pretentious Latin Motto, Quo Nemo Sequi Potest which is loosely translated as Where No One Can Follow. Next up, Deus Vult is Latin for God Wills It.

The player himself can abandon Mina, SIE, or Scarlett, or even execute them himself depending on how the story has played out.

Ambiguously Gay: Conrad Marburg. During the mission where you have to check out his villa, Thorton sees a pair of golden statues of naked (male) Greco-Roman athletes. Thorton is slightly disturbed by the implication. If you bring Madison as your handler, she remarks that she's "never seen Marburg entertain any female guests." The statues are fairly common in Art Deco neo-classicism, but compounded with that comment...

And This Is For...: Mike can do this to Leland in the ending. What he says depends on what grudges he's holding. He could say Madison, Mina, his life, and anyone or anything else bad that's happened.

He will also do this to Westridge if you execute him. There, he will claim it's for "betraying my country."

Anti-Hero: Michael Thorton can be played as this, as the game offers a lot of choice in character development. Thorton can even make a Face Heel Turn, complete with Evil Smoking! See We Can Rule Together.

Anyone Can Die: Though very very few deaths are plot-mandatory, play your cards right (or wrong, depending on your point of view), and the only people from the character page left alive at the end will be Mike, Steven, and SIE or Albatross/Sis.

Shaheed, even though he can later help you out if you don't execute him, is this for the Saudi Arabia hub.

Marburg is this for the Rome hub.

Omen Deng, who later turns out to be a good guy, is this for the Taipei hub (but since both you and him were trying to stop the real assassin, Scarlet Lake, from killing Ronald Sung, she can be considered this instead).

Surkov is this for the Moscow hub (though if you don't attain the "Prevent Surkov's Escape" mission then you may falsely believe that this title belongs to Brayko, which it doesn't).

Arms Dealer: Omar Nasri, responsible for selling stockpiles of Russian weapons to anyone who is willing to pay. The game has several other arms dealers as well, although they're mostly contacted anonymous through an Internet-based sales hub.

Steven Heck is pretty loopy too. Fortunately, he's somewhat controllable. At one point in Taipei Mike says, "If I do this we'll have to shoot our way out." At which point the only response is a little burst of crazy laughter from him. Earlier in the same mission, if one tells him not to kill anybody, he looks like he's about to cry for a few seconds.

EVERYONE in the active part of VCI. One of their requirements for joining is "dishonorable discharge from army."

Special mention goes to SIE, who could best be described as a German, female, middle-aged Duke Nukem.

Back Stab: Well, throat-slit from behind, rather. Still works the same mechanically.

Bad Ass Grandpa: Conrad Marburg was a black ops field agent for 20 years. Now he's chief of operations of a mercenary gang composed of veteran soldiers. To keep himself in shape, he runs ten miles a day. He can punch the crap out of you like nobody else in the game.

The fastest way to lower Mina Tang's opinion of you is to injure civilians. Or US citizens even if they are marines or CIA who are trying to KEEL you. -1 reputation for each.

Killing Marburg's men. He will charge and beat the crap out of you. "My men...YOU'LL PAY FOR THAT!"

BFG: SIE's personal weapon is an M-60, and she has no qualms about shooting it. A lot. Mike, on the other hand, doesn't get anything bigger than an assault rifle, though he can commandeer turret-mounted MGs, rocket launchers, and sniper rifles.

Big Bad: Leland and Halbech. At the start of the endgame, he offers Mike a job. Unusually for a videogame, you can accept the offer, and he actually helps you out instead of pulling an obligatory new-betrayal.

Bilingual Bonus: The yacht in one of Moscow's missions is named "Pobeda" (victory in Russian) with first two letters dropped out, leaving "Beda" (trouble or disaster in Russian). This is reference to the ship from cult Russian cartoon "Captain Vrungel's adventures".

In Rome, the hub ends with you choosing either to save Madison or preventing a bombing. Prevent the bombing and Madison is tragically killed; save Madison and Rome is tragically bombed.

In Taipei, you have to choose between either saving data on the assassination attempt or the riots; save the data on the riots, and the instigation plan for the riots will fail and no one dies but President Sung dies; saving the data on the assassination prevents Sung's death but will kill hundreds in the riots. Both decisions will save someone but have repercussions in the region.

Black and Gray Morality: Halbech are bad guys. Alpha Protocol are also bad guys. None of your allies are saints either, and the only one who isn't using you and doesn't betray you if you play him right is a Blood KnightHeroic Comedic Sociopath who's just in it to blow stuff up. That said, some characters are less evil than others, the closest being Albatross and G22.

And don't forget Madison St. James, who was just trying to do the right thing.

Blackmail: When you get data on Halbech's misdeeds, the most profitable use of it is to politely ask a Halbech executive to pay up in exchange for not blowing the evidence wide open. Roughly $15,000, 3 times the cost of sending it to the black market.

Book Ends: The first and final missions both begin with Michael escaping from Alpha Protocol's medical room. Also, The boat that Mike leaves Alpha Protocol on in some endings is marked with a large Greek alphabet letter Omega. Alpha is the first letter of the Greek alphabet, while Omega is the last.

Boom, Headshot: Can only be done reliably with aimed pistol and rifle shots, but any bullet that hits someone's head will do Massive Damage.

Boss Banter: Pretty much all the bosses indulge in this to some extent.

Bottomless Magazines: Under normal circumstances, you don't want to waste too many bullets, but the special attack power for the submachineguns is "Bullet Storm," which gives you infinite ammo for a short period of time. (And then you have to reload as normal afterwards.)

Played with; the Chain Shot slows down time so you can plan several shots, and Mike executes them, in order, and very quickly, when time goes back to normal. All with flawless accuracy, too; this has its perks in certain boss fights, since headshots do lots of damage, and drilling six pistol rounds into someone's head is a very effective way to kill them. All the other weapon skills (Focused Aim, Bullet Storm, and Room Sweep) slow down time very slightly.

The martial art skill "Fury" is a straight-up Neo-wannabe skill : every enemy is slowed down, you move at regular speed, and you get bonuses to melee ass kicking. In fact, even without it the melee charged attack is in slo-mo, the better for you to enjoy that nice roundhouse to the teeth.

Poor Wen. First he gets tortured by Steven Heck who was doing it to get Wen to tell him where his keys were. Then, if you have a positive reputation with Heck after the final mission in Taipei, he gets framed for the (attempted) assassination of the President Ronald Sung and is, according to the news reporter during the end-credits, executed.

Nasri counts as well, though to a lesser degree. If you decide to arrest him, rather than kill or extort, he becomes subject to an increasingly twisted and painful set of interrogation techniques over the course of the game.

Can't Stop the Signal: Several of the endings in the game involve you leaking details of Halbech and Alpha Protocol's involvement in various terrorist acts to the press. You can also do this on a smaller scale over the course of the game. Except that the reporter you're selling the secrets to is on Halbech's payroll. Although said reporter despises Halbech.

Michael. In addition to his more exotic hand-to-hand training, he also has the option of incapacitating a downed enemy with a particularly vicious stomp.

If you level up his martial arts skills, you also have the option to take out your pistol (or SMGs, or Assault Rifle, or Shotgun...) and shoot your opponent point blank, right after you've punched them in the face. Or, even better, you can shoot opponents while they are down. Both are great ways to tell a person to fuck himself. And you're thinking about Marburg now, right? It's an excellent boss-fighting technique too. Marburg, for example, is stunned by the point-blank shot longer than it takes to execute. Meaning you can kill the son of a bitch without even giving him a chance to breathe.

Reading their dossiers reveals that pretty much anyone who is anyone in the game follows this. Marburg, Sis, and Heck each have specific paragraphs outlining they're not above fighting dirty.

Certain bosses and other "major" enemies — the ones that run inhumanly fast like Brayko. Additionally, while Brayko is coked up, he will ignore almost all of your actions. Except the flashbang.

Omen Deng can turn invisible and run away at high speed during your encounter with him. Technically, you can turn invisible too, but it never works on enemies who are alerted to your presence, so he's at least bending the rules. The "cheating" part comes in when he turns invisible — which he can do at will — which then immediately triggers his endurance regeneration (almost everyone else has to at least have to wait five seconds, and Mike maxes out at 7 seconds wait). In addition, he frequently engages you in melee combat, and you can have an ability that reduces your opponent's chance of blocking by 75%. That doesn't matter, though: if he decides he doesn't want to get hit by your punches and kicks, you will not hit him. (He can't dodge incendiary grenades though.)

Even some of the standard enemies will go straight for you, even if you're cloaked, in cover, and have not been spotted in that level at all yet.

In short, the bosses in the game are, almost without exception, brutally unfair. Take whatever edge you can find.

Confusion Fu: According to Steven Heck himself, his fighting style is based heavily on this. Well, that, and Improvised Weaponry, including decapitation via soccer balls traveling at 400 miles per hour, impaling a target with a ten-speed mountain bike, and assassinating a Vatican official by strangling him with communion wafers. He also excels in a psychosis-based resistance to pain and bullet wounds.

Continue Your Mission, Dammit!: Happens all the time. (Oddly, in the few instances where Mike is actually working against the clock, Mission Control is suddenly silent. Probably because the timers are short enough that no false urgency is required.)

Played straight with most major bosses, who can take multiple headshots, resist most gadgets, start out alerted to Mike's presence and stay that way making stealth useless.

Averted with most other minibosses, who despite having names and seemingly large health bars are still as vulnerable to gadgets, headshots or stealth attacks as any other mook.

Contrived Coincidence: Madison St. James is just a nice person completely removed from the various conspiracies who, by virtue of her boss being involved in said conspiracies, learns of said boss' plans to murder someone. She becomes involved simply because she decides to do what she sees as the right thing and warn him. She's also Alan Parker's daughter, and this has absolutely nothing to do with how she falls into trouble, but can be a key plot point if Mike figures it out. Dialog suggests that Parker has been estranged from her for so long that he himself didn't recognize her until he's told. Hilariously lampshaded if Mike uses this information, prompting Parker to shoot Marburg for either putting his daughter in danger or outright killing her:

Corrupt Corporate Executive: Leland. He could really only be more obvious by having a big label with 'SLEAZEBAG' on his suit, if that Godawful tie of his doesn't count. It's bad enough he should be shot just for wearing it.

Cosmetic Award: Beyond just the X-Box Achievements, your personal room will have trophies in it from Mike's adventures, based off of his choices in the past and who likes or dislikes him. For example, one of your earliest objectives, an arms dealer, gets you his beret if you arrested him rather than letting him go. Mike usually has something snarky to say about his collection pieces when you examine them.

You can romance a lot of the female characters in the game. There's even an achievement for romancing all of them within the span of one game. With a variety of different personalities and Guide Dang It!, you may see some romances well in advance, others, not so much.

Also, for the record, no, you cannot romance Sis. Saved you some time, there.

Crippling Overspecialization: Pumping too many points into one stat while neglecting all others is a good way to make the game unplayable in short order for an inexperienced player, or on the Hard difficulty, or both. Having a few playthroughs under one's belt and thus a better understanding of how the game flows as well as the Veteran background make overspecializing a more viable playstyle.

Cutscene Incompetence: Mike really enjoys dropping the whole "stealth" thing and loudly announcing his presence while out of cover in cutscenes.

Cutscene Power to the Max: Although it is justified in allowing the developer's to effectively implement boss fights into the game, the game will change the laws of physics and biology between boss fights and the cutscenes following them. During boss fights (i.e. the ones against Brayko, Sis and Omen) the boss, considering how they are damage sponges (see below), will be peppered like a loaded pepper container with bullets, explosions and whatever attacks you can come up with — but as soon as the game transitions to the cutscene following the boss where you are holding them at gunpoint and deciding whether or not to execute them, they have nothing more than a few non-lethal shots and punches in the head. Additionally, they can recover shockingly quickly if you ally with them and take their help later; for example, if you spare Brayko and learn the truth of Surkov, he will appear in that mission completely healed up and slice him up for you.

Cycle of Revenge: Invoked by Albatross after the mission at the US embassy as the reason why he's glad you ddn't kill anyone.

Albatross' e-mail: Killing someone, be it an ennemy or not, increase the risks of the authorities investigating us and a loved one's vengeance.

D to I

Damage-Sponge Boss: Played completely straight with the bosses in the game (which, as described in the above trope, is a bit of a weird thing for the story) by making them capable of surviving 20s of SMG shots, 5s of consecutive headshots with a pistol, you name it. A potential threat to the suspension of disbelief a realistic game like this depends on, it doesn't match well with the style of this game to have to fight enemies that just run up to you, ignoring the 2 assault rifle clips to the face you just gave them, and just beat the everliving crap out of you.

Scarlet and Mina too in the endgame. Though with Scarlet it can be subverted in that she comes to help Leland if you fail to rescue her. Also, Scarlet can be killed if you learn the truth from Omen (select "Download PDA Files" and spare Omen), and Mina can be killed if you ally with Leland and he orders you to kill her.

Darker and Edgier: An in-game example: if Mike has been friendly with Mina, but then are sent by Leland to kill her, she'll remark when Mike arrives that he seems harder and colder.

A Date with Rosie Palms: Implied in the last mission's debriefing. If your handler is SIE and you have sex with her Michael will comment that he hopes the camera wasn't recording. In the debriefing it says that Michael has a video that he removed and encrypted and has seen 143 times. It is a highly valuable piece of information wanted by all government agencies.

Deadpan Snarker: Some of Michael's non-controllable dialogue hints to this being his default personality.

Defeat Means Friendship: Pretty much any named character that is introduced as an antagonist can become an ally if you spare his life. There's even an achievement for getting all your enemies to be your friends within one game.

Defector from Decadence: It's never outright stated, but it's heavily implied that G22 is an off-shoot of one of the previous iterations of Alpha Protocol. According to a secret fact given by Albatross if you refuse to ally with him in Moscow, it mentions that one iteration was called G19, and Albatross knows of Alpha Protocol's inner workings. It helps that Alpha Protocol follows an apparently well-established policy of "Yellow Brick Roading," whereby each agent sets up their own funds, supplies, contacts, and safehouses, meaning that any agent could theoretically shoot off and do their own thing if the organization goes under.

Developers' Foresight: And we mean everything. This game ran so rampant with this trope that even Yahtzee commented on it, stating his opinion that the game was "just showing off!"

Characters will actually comment on your clothing style, armor, and weapons choices, and cutscenes will be completely different depending on sometimes minor choices or even what skills you have points in. For example, after recovering the assassination plans in Taipei, if Mike has a high technical aptitude, he'll be decrypting the files. Otherwise, Mina will do it.

In some cases, the commentary will come several missions later; e.g. if you're wearing heavy armor while rescuing Surkov from the US Embassy, he'll comment on the armor when you meet him. If you're wearing civilian attire, on the other hand, he'll comment on it later in his office.

Surkov: "You have a lot of pockets! Have you come to check my internet connection?"

Omen Deng will comment on your choice of armor in the subway station. For stealth armors, he compliments you on wearing camouflage, but says civilian clothing would have been smarter. For heavy armors, he says "You look like you're prepared for war." And for utility armor, he tells you "You look like you're prepared for anything." He compliments you on blending into the crowd if you choose civilian clothing, even though you're openly carrying two guns.

Informants for a particular mission hub will be pleased if you came to them first rather than going to do some other business in their turf. Grigori will show off even more of how much he knows if you happen to have visited places other than Moscow first. "Taipei, out of Rome?" There was no reason the developers needed this level of attention to detail, but they did it!

Getting past the door guards at the US Embassy in Moscow requires some careful persuasion....unless you chose Soldier or Veteran as your background, in which case you pull a Bavarian Fire Drill and walk right inside without any trouble at all.

The game keeps track on what stances you use in the opening of the game and gives you a perk for sticking to one of the three stances. Characters will keep referencing your dominant stance, which may not be the one you used mainly during the opening. At the very end, Leland will mention it if you've undergone a shift in dominant stance during the game, describing it as Character Development and ask you if you feel comfortable with your new direction.

For a short while during the mission to infiltrate Marburg's villa, Thorton is disarmed of all his equipment. You cannot use lethal stealth kills on enemies during this time - his knife's been taken away, too!

Some are quite subtle. If you are relaxed and chatty with Grigori, he'll like the fact you're not violent nor businesslike. Later, when you first meet Surkov, he'll have no idea who you are - because Grigori didn't betray you to him.

The endgame can go many different ways depending on how you dealt with different characters throughout.

Didn't See That Coming: Thorton can set one of these up on Leland and Alpha Protocol. And it is awesome. To elaborate: as you play the game, it becomes increasingly obvious that Leland has no idea G22 exists, and with skill and effort it's possible to keep it that way for the entire game, as they stealthily assist you in bringing down his entire organization. Then in the endgame, Halbech thinks they've finally caught you, all your allies are accounted for, no one is left to help you, there's no possible escape...and then suddenly the power goes down, the security grid goes nuts, and the compound is stormed by dozens of coordinated heavily-armed commandos in high-tech military gear out of fucking nowhere.

Dirty Coward: The boss fight with Darcy, where he simply hides up in a guard tower flinging grenades, sending wave-after-wave of minions at you, and taunting you endlessly, and then has the gall to say he's kicking your ass. He'll also complain that you're not playing fair if you go into stealth mode or hide behind cover.

Dissonant Serenity: Steven Heck's a nutcase, but he is remarkably calm and casual most of the time, even in combat. He tends to treat missions where things get blown sky-high as absolutely normal. But God help you if you don't know where his keys are! Poor Wen Shu...

It was notable that during the hotel mission he is whistling while in a shootout with the hotel guards.

The first email you get from Steve—er, Steven Heck, concerning the weapons he sells on the black market, is titled "Buy My Junk." He actually admits its on purpose. Made even more hilarious with the translation in Poland when it translates to "Grab the barrel of my gun" . A perfect example of Woolseyism.

Drugs Are Bad: Played with. While fighting Brayko he can defeat himself by taking doses of cocaine. But that's if you have Steve—er, Steven Heck "fix" it beforehand. If not than Brayko just goes on cocaine fueled, knife rampage.

El Cid Ploy: It is implied that Fidel Castro is dead and that the Cuban government is covering this up. Ironically, Castro proved that he was still alive a few months after the game was released.

Escort Mission: In Russia, one mission ends with you having to protect Surkov from hordes of either G22 or VCI goons, depending on which you chose to ally with. (How much damage he takes during the fight determines his attitude toward you afterwards.)

Every Man Has His Price: As suitable for a spy drama, you get a lot of bribe attempts, be it with money or with information, tossed your way in this game.

Bribe Backfire: It's up to you how you want to respond to them, with plenty of opportunities for this. The most clear-cut example comes if you're friends with Steven Heck, however: At the end of Taipei, a VCI representative will try to bribe him into fingering you as Ronald Sung's assassin. Steven pops off two of his fingers with a cigar clipper (the guy called him Steve) and sets him on fire.

Even Evil Has Standards: You would presume that the reason Hong Shi sends you out to kill dissenting Triads is because the dissenters became greedy; but if you investigate that level enough, you'll learn that the real reason the defectors defected is nothing to do with money, but because they, despite being a criminal organization themselves, refused to affiliate with a gang associated with Al-Samad, the terror group that shot down an airliner full of innocent civilians.

Evil Counterpart: Marburg tells Mike that Mike's position is the same as his twenty years ago; both of them were sold out by their government and they both became independent agents. They even look a lot alike, age disparity considered.

Al-Samad and its leader bear more than a resemblance to al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden.

Halbech, a morally ambiguous defense contractor with government contacts, is an obvious composite of the real-world companies Halliburton and Bechtel.

Eye Scream: Scarlet does this to Leland if you make the right choices. Sniper bullet at such a close range that it leaves burns. Thorton himself can do the same thing with his handgun upon choosing to execute Leland.

Fighter, Mage, Thief: Combat, tech, and stealth skills, along with the Soldier, Tech Specialist and Agent professions. Subverted in that, as the Operative specialization points out, most veteran field agents don't pigeonhole themselves into one method of solving problems.

Foreshadowing: There are several hints before The Reveal of how Chinese Secret Police officer Omen Deng is actually a Taiwanese double agent and good guy. Firstly, his dossier (even at 33%, the initial level) reveals that his nationality is Taiwanese; the second and third hints come in the form of the 2nd and 3rd (especially the 3rd) dossier pieces of him. The last hint is when you are fighting him in the memorial hall near a statue of Taipei's founder; he comments "Here, before the eyes of our nation's founder, you will die"; an astute player might realize that if Omen was really a Chinese agent, then this is something he should not be saying in Taipei.

There are so many layers of deception that by the end of the game you'll find yourself wondering if there is at least one person who is not involved in something, has an agenda or a double agent. Steven Heck; at least, he has no agenda of his own and isn't part of any of the conspiracies.

And that's only if you don't count the Shrug of God from Chris Avellone that implies Heck was the one who sold Halbech all the info and materiel they needed to set up the hit on Sung in the first place, and got Omen Deng the info fingering you as Sung's assassin-to-be.

A few missions, like the Embassy in Moscow, will sometimes credit you with an entirely different approach in the debriefing. A few of these are major enough to completely change the ending like when said mission in Moscow says you shot US Marines even though you actually fought beside them in the mission. This can be avoided by not ever using the second story "sneaking route" entrance, either leaving or exiting the building. Opening that triggers an event flag that says you sided against the Marines, even when you never fired a shot or were never even seen. And if you paid extra for the sniper rifle delivery to the roof, you'll just have to climb up the ladder from outside the building in order to access it.

Also with the early Saudi missions as part of the railroading. Doorways and the like are one way only. If you find a way to back track, you can fall through the floor and need to reset the game.

Most of your abilities are justifiably within the range of human limits, such as concentrating really hard so you can snap off a bunch of precision shots in an instant, but the Stealth skillset full-on lets you become invisible for short periods of time. You can abuse this to punch a a small group of people in the throat right in front of one another to take them all down.

"Iron Will" increases the players damage resistance for a short time. It also gives him a blue glow and when he gets hit by bullets it sounds as though they hit solid metal. "IRON Will" indeed.

One character threatens to shoot at the crates Mike is hiding behind. Said crates are completely bullet proof in gameplay. She may have been bluffing.

During a Pacifist Run, players will be irritated to see cutscenes portraying Mike as killing people (such as the ending of Marburg's villa mission.)

Many of the "non-lethal" takedown moves have animations that clearly show Mike snapping his victim's spine.

To quote one of the Taipei mission debriefings: "During the pursuit, Steven Heck (at Agent Thorton's request) arrived to offer emergency backup. Said backup came in the form of Heck crudely mounting a minigun to a subway car and firing wildly at Chinese secret police officers as his train passed the platform."

If you choose to bring down the entirety of Alpha Protocol, one of your final fights is with Yancy, who uses a trio of them — though only one at a time of course — for maximum room coverage.

Enemies, too. In the case of G22, its leader Albatross will be really, REALLY pissed off at you if you killed Sis, justified self-defense or not, and in preparation for going into Alpha Protocol, Mike can call Albatross. If he's on your side, good for you. If he's not, Mike can goad Albatross into showing up for the final showdown at Alpha Protocol anyway because it's the last chance he'll have to kill you to get revenge for killing Sis.

Guide Dang It!: Trial and error is the only real way to learn how to get the responses you want to your actions. Of course, since the game rewards you for everything, it even has a perk and Achievement for waffling a bunch on what stance you take.

How to fight Marburg to the death, as he usually avoids or escapes conflict. The simplest method is to befriend Madison, and then reveal her fate to Parker in an optional conversation. Less simple is finding most of Parker's complete dossier, which is inexplicably hidden in certain email conversations, and then passing it on to Marburg. Most complex of all is goading him into fighting in Rome, which is triggered by a complicated script, apparently involving every conversation you've had in the entire game.

How to make it so you're not considered to have fired on the Marines at the embassy in Russia. Talk your way through the front door, and never open the door from the second floor to the roof until the very final part.

There's a mission in Taipei where you have to intercept a messenger, but at the end the messenger tricks you into a taking-you-with-me situation where the both of you are about to get hit by a train. And to make it worse, this is in a section of the tracks where there's no alcove, so if you don't perform the right action the both of you will die. There's a couple ways to solve this:

One, you can turn around and head back the way you came, finding a door, and then try to pick the lock before the train arrives (although this is insanely hard to pull off in time, because the train is still coming while you are picking the lock).

Two, you can run towards the messenger, quickly knock him out, then hit the lever to switch the tracks so the train misses you. This method is much easier.

When facing Darcy as a boss in the final mission in Alpha Protocol, he can be extremely hard to beat since he holes up in a guard tower, rarely exposes himself to damage, and keeps spamming grenades at you so you can't stay in cover for too long, but staying out of cover exposes you to Mooks shooting you. So how do you beat him? You need to hold onto at least one EMP Charge until this point, then have it selected as a gadget. Then, use it to disable the lock on the tower the boss isn't hiding in (picking the lock manually takes too long and you'll get shot while doing it). That tower has a sniper rifle in it, and the boss's grenades can't reach you there, so you can kill the boss in about five shots. Just make sure you don't get blown up before or while you climb the ladder, however, since it's only at the top of the tower that the boss can't reach, so it's recommended you enter the tower after Darcy's already thrown grenades somewhere else.

Guile Hero: Mike Thorton if you want him to be. It is heavily recommended by the game itself.

The final level, which throws between three and five bosses at you (depending on your choices throughout the game), plus legions of Mooks, plus one of the few Timed Missions, then caps it off with a Final Boss who doesn't run away, take cover, or disappear when you try to hit him, has low damage reduction, and can't dish it out (or take it, for that matter) in melee.

In general, most bosses are not all that much hardier than their henchmen, and they're usually vulnerable to being geeked by a quick Chain Shot. However, smart bosses have armies of dangerous henchmen, locks and traps between you and them.

Heroic B.S.O.D.: What happens to Michael after Rome. It's worse if you didn't save Madison

Thorton has the option of skipping stealth altogether and just shooting everyone. Lampshaded by Albatross if you bungle the Embassy mission: "Do you just walk up to every soldier you see and introduce yourself?"

By encouraging agents to procure their own source of funding, supplies, and intel, Alpha Protocol ensures that after Thorton goes rogue, he can not only stay under the radar but come back and destroy them.

It is possible to set one of these up against Alpha Protocol at the endgame by calling on G22 to attack their facility. Since G22 is the offshoot of G19, a former iteration of Alpha Protocol, that means that you're pitting a former version of AP against itself, built out of the very resources allocated to G19 up until it was dissolved.

You can also do this to G22 in Moscow. If you agree to a partnership with Albatross, G22 will sell you all kinds of intel for the mission to get to Surkov at the embassy. If you choose to use SIE as your handler for the mission, however, G22 will storm the embassy and you will have to fight them off...using the intel (including a strategically placed sniper rifle) that they sold you beforehand.

How We Got Here: The game opens with Leland interrogating Thorton. It turns out that Thorton let himself get captured.

I Can Rule Alone: When Leland hires you, he doesn't exactly check to make sure you'll be a loyal minion.

Sparing Shaheed has its benefits. He is a man of his word as he says, and doesn't just vanish off to stroke his beard and be villainous. You have to actually agree to let him go, however, as he'll die in the attack if you arrest him.

The ending reveals that he's alive and well, and continuing to carry out his attacks.

Unless of course you spare him in Saudi, meet up with him just before the final mission, and turn down his offer of help. You'll politely thank him for the intel on Halbech he gave you, listen to his bodyguards run into a pack of landmines you set, and shoot him in the head for his part in the airline attack that kicked off the game.

I Minored in Tropology: In the catacombs of Carsulae, Mina jokingly credits her knowledge of bathhouses to her "major" in Ancient Roman Plumbing and a "minor" in Architecture.

Mike: "So they underestimated me and they thought I was too stupid to figure it out!"

I Shall Taunt You: Mike can do this to some enemies just to piss them off. For example, talking suave to Marburg is the only way to get him to stick around in Rome to fight and die. If Mike chooses to kill Sis, he can call up Albatross to taunt him about this to get him to assault Alpha Protocol just to kill Mike before he can slip out of his fingers.

J to Q

Just for Pun: Mike makes one when talking to Steven, if you select the right option. "Shouldn't you have stabbed him to get the 'point.'"

Karma Houdini: When it comes to named characters in the game, almost anyone can become this based on your decisions. Only named characters will be considered here. Also, since there are frankly too many of them, we won't list characters in the game who you have to or can choose the fate of (i.e. Nasri, Shaheed, Brayko and Scarlet) will not be listed here.

There is no ending in the game in which Michael is arrested or killed; therefore, he becomes one if you play as a Sociopathic Hero (killing civilian authorities and recklessly executing the wrong or amibguously-wrong people).

There are only 2 named Non Player Characters who avert this trope regardless of player choices and will always be dead by the endgame: Jibril Al-Bara (will be killed by Marburg if you don't snipe him) and Darcy (the only named character you are unconditionally required to kill).

Unless you make very specific gameplay choices up until the fight with him, Marburg is perhaps the easiest fate-determinant character to become this. To coax him into fighting you in Rome to the death (for otherwise he will simply flee the museum when running low on health), you need to have the Suave perk (which requires start-of-game decision-making), have a low enough reputation, and have enough dossier intel on Marburg (possibly including an email Mina sends you on Deus Vult). Unlike all the other bosses you can rematch him in the endgame, though you need to have enough dossier info on Parker to do so (you can either reveal to Parker that Marburg killed/almost killed his daughter Madison or that Parker was responsible for leaving Marburg to dry years ago).

The unseen Arms Dealers in the game via the Clearinghouse can also qualify.

There is none to speak of, though the game keeps track of every action you take and during at least one ending a character will recount every bad thing you've done. So if you want to play Michael as an extra-Manipulative Bastard who only seemed like he was doing good right up until he decides to work for the bad guys, you can go for it.

True to form, Obsidian have planned for the latter approach and it'll be noted that "nobody could ever understand what's going through [Mike's] head".

Kent Brockman News: The INN newscasters, who occasionally report on stories like "the dreaded Nigerian puppy scam" and the shocking new study linking sugar to hyperactivity in children.

Kill 'em All: Depending on how you play, the game can end with nearly the entire main cast dead. The only major character you can't kill off is Steven Heck, though you can't eliminate both SIE and Albatross in the same game.

Kirk Summation: Michael Thorton delivers an epic one to Conrad Marburg if you choose to let Madison die and give suave responses when talking to Marburg before and during the boss fight. If you have enough negative reputation, Marburg will fight to death.

Michael if you use lethal silent takedowns. Interestingly, Mike makes knife kills realistically; the way he jams the blade hard into the side of his target's neck is the 'proper' way to slit a throat. The "ear to ear" concept often seen in fiction is Rule of Cool and doesn't do a good job opening up the jugular.

Konstantin Brayko. He is a rather vicious mob boss, but the guy's bizarre 80s obsession and just how Ax-Crazy he is make him a real entertaining bundle of fun. If you simply read his dossier you look forward to killing him, but if you take some time to talk to him before, that urge really goes away.

While Steven Heck is technically an ally of the player and not quite evil, this trope is the main thing keeping him sympathetic at all. Normally a character who's disappointed at being told not to kill anyone would be rather vile if it wasn't someone as entertainingly completely crazy as Heck is.

Left Hanging: They never do explain why the NSA listening post in Rome is apparently manned by a civilian who doesn't respond to the passphrase.

In the ending, it's possible for Mike to set this up between Marburg and Parker in two ways: By completing Marburg's dossier and telling him that Parker was the handler responsible for making him go rogue or telling Parker that Marburg killed Madison, his daughter. Either way it ends with Parker dead while Mike gets to fight Marburg.

If you make Mike's advances overt however, SIE will get bored of you pretty fast.

Limited Wardrobe: Michael has a different casual outfit in each theatre of operations, plus several armour options. Of the rest of the cast, Mina, Darcy, Madison and SIE get two outfits each, and everyone else wears the same clothes for the duration of the game.

Cutscene!Thorton may as well be invulnerable. Most (if not all) of the bosses fall into this category too, able to survive close to a good half dozen headshots. In a row.

And the cutscene in which Mike spares Leland, only to get interrupted by someone. And by "interrupted," I mean "shot through the upper chest with a sniper rifle from about twenty feet away" — which results in a column of Pink Mist erupting from his chest. After a couple of minutes of looking about you're about to get a Non Standard Game Over, Mike's back on his feet and good as new.

Manipulative Bastard: Michael, if you pick up on people's behavior (which isn't hard) and how they prefer to be treated — read the dossiers! — can be one of these. Nothing quite like playing someone up so that they really like you, and then smashing their face into a table.

This is actually one of the reasons Westridge thinks Mike would be a good agent; when Mike questions if his people skills are really that good, Westridge says it's not that he's charismatic but Mike can read people very well and thus manipulate his/their responses as needed.

Master of None: Inexperienced players want to avoid this, especially if not playing with the bonus AP from the Veteran background. A generalist build is doable but very difficult if you don't know what you're doing. On the flipside, completely neglecting the other aspect will end poorly; stealth/technical builds need some investment in combat skills for the unskippable bosses and combat builds need some investment in technical to pass some puzzles.

The Men in Black: The CIA agents and Marburg's Deus Vult agents tend to rock this look, though the G22 agents tend to fill in the role as shadowy agents.

Mind Screw: Start the game as a "Veteran" and when Mike first picks up his PDA, he'll briefly see, instead of Mina's face, the face of the grubby weird guy running the NSA gelato shop/information server. He'll wonder if hallucinations are a side-effect of the drugs.

Moe Greene Special: How Leland and Deng meet their fates should you choose to execute them.

The Mole: Many, many of the characters are keeping their real loyalties hidden:

Alpha Protocol, the whole organization, is basically working for Halbech. The one exception is Mina, who never actually left the NSA and has been spying on Alpha Protocol for them.

Scarlet was hired by Halbech to assassinate the President of Taiwan.

Omen Deng, high-ranking member of the Chinese Secret Police, is a Fake Defector and Taiwanese double agent.

Surkov in Moscow is the real Halbech contact, but he sics you on Brayko. Unless you've been playing smart, you'll never even find out and the final Moscow mission will be closed off.

Almost every organization you have to fight in the game has at least one mole who will feed you intel for a price: Deus Vult, the CIA, Al-Samad, the Mafiya, the Triad defectors, even G22 (although their mole isn't actually a member of their organization, it's the guy who installed their autoturrets).

More Friends, More Benefits: Played mostly straight. You get the "womanizer" perk for seducing every possible Love Interest in the game, and shopping for equipment and intel is easier if you're buddies with the people who provide you with such things. Plus, it's usually easier to get dossier information from people who like you, which often opens up new options for developing the plot. However, it's not essential; the game is still perfectly winnable if you go through it actively trying to piss off absolutely everyone, and in fact has perks for going out of your way to antagonise 'em all.

"Crime Buster": Mike exposes Halbech, causing it to go out of business, but is either unable or unwilling to expose Alpha Protocol, leaving the agency free to reform under another name.

"No Compromise, No Mercy": Mike exposes both Halbech and Alpha Protocol leading to the disolution of both organizations.

"Rising Star": Mike becomes Leland's dragon and the two of them make it look as though Alpha Protocol was solely responsible for the conspiracy.

"Thorton, inc.": Same as above, except Mike betrays Leland and uses his allies to rule the world behind the scenes.

Most sub-variants of the four above depend on who is Mike's handler for the final mission and who rides off into the sunset with him. It could be Mina, who will show up by default if you romanced her, or Scarlet if you romanced her but not Mina (and also depending, of course, on whether they lived or died). Steven Heck will pop up if he's been selected as your handler and the criteria for the other two haven't been met; he can save you from being sniped as well. Failing all that, Mike will ride the boat home alone, talking to himself.

Murder Is the Best Solution: When discussing your mission in Saudi Arabia, Westridge makes it clear that your job is to kill Shaheed. Sure, bring him in if he surrenders, but "capture or kill" really only means the latter in this case. He has ulterior motives. Shaheed knows too much and needs to be erased, along with Mike. On the other hand, if Shaheed is allowed to live, he really will be a danger after the mission's over; the best result from Mike's perspective is to let Shaheed live until he's outlived his usefulness.

Necessary Drawback: Most equipment have this. A certain magazine type may increase ammo capacity but penalise stability. Armored joints increase Endurance but make more noise. Stealth armour has good sound dampening but inferior Endurance bonuses to combat armour. Even the stuff that is a straight upgrade over base gear, usually guns manufactured by Hamilton, usually has inferior stats in certain areas compared to other manufacturers' weapons that greatly improve one or two areas in exchange for penalising others.

Never Bring A Knife To A Gunfight: One of the possible bosses is "Championchik", a Dumb Muscle Olympic boxing champion turned bratva who only uses his fists. Gunning him down is the easy way to win, and Mike will say a variation of the line if you go this route.

If you beat the game with the recruit background you can play through again with the Veteran background. This starts you off with three levels in every skill (with no effect on your future AP), and with better armour and weapons. Also a bit of a Game-Breaker: after the initial mission, you have the option of customizing your character, and there's absolutely nothing preventing you from removing AP from the skills you won't use and bumping up the skills you do. You can max out three skills (to the level limits, anyway) before you leave Saudi Arabia. Also a Bragging Rights Reward since beating the game as a Recruit means you've proven that you don't need those extra skill points.

Many of the "Veteran" stances indicate that this version of Thorton simply does not have time to deal with rookie crap; he demands a fast-forwarding of the orientation process and his very first line in the game upon waking up is "Where's my gear?" rather than a confused "I can't believe they drugged me!"

New Meat: You can also choose to have Mike start off with a Rookie background. Doing so means that you'll not have any AP when you start the game, but you can get special bonuses that are only available to Rookies if you play into your inexperience in the tutorial section. You'll still be underpowered compared to other backgrounds, but its the only way to unlock Veteran.

Nice Hat: Quite a few, including Hong Shi's fedora, SIE's beret and Omen Deng's Commissar Cap. Mike can get a beret of his own, or an ushanka during the Russia hub.

Nice Job Fixing It, Villain!: When Alpha Protocol betrays Thorton, they forgot that Alpha Protocol is so secretive that not even Westridge knows where all their safe houses are. Guess where Thorton hides from Alpha Protocol between missions. Additionally, Alpha Protocol by its very nature of encouraging agents to acquire their own information and supply networks made sure that Thorton could stay under the radar and still get supplies and information. In short, Alpha Protocol made sure that Thorton had the resources required to destroy Alpha Protocol.

The game can be pretty brutal... but only if you specialize in one style of gameplay. Skill specialization won't hurt you by itself, however being unable to be flexible and think on your feet will.

A no-alarms and no-kill playthrough would be a challenge for Big Boss, though. No-kill at least can be eked out by using the pistol with the (expensive) sedative rounds, plenty of points in martial arts and toughness and some in stealth.

Boss fights, doubly so if you're running a fragile build. Marburg will punch the hell out of you if you get close. Or any encountered with a low supply of ammo, not enough points in certain skills, etc. This isn't unique to Alpha Protocol but it does seem to happen a fair amount.

Noble Demon: Shaheed comes off as this, more or less. Once he makes a promise, he keeps it, and he's quite smart and forthcoming. If he wasn't running a terrorist organization that blew up a passenger airplane in the beginning it'd be easy to like the guy. At the very least, it's easy to see why he inspires loyalty among his men.

No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Mike can deliver one of these to Grigori, complete with repeatedly slamming his head against the bar and then beating him over the head with a bottle of vodka.

Alpha Protocol officially doesn't exist for the purpose of providing deniable assets. This is good for the U.S. government, but not so much for its agents, who are disavowed if caught. Guess what happens to Mike at the end of the Saudi Arabia arc.

It also can bite Leland in the ass: if you choose to leave him hanging for the manipulations he had Alpha Protocol perform, he'll say that he'll be fine, because the government will never allow his involvement with Alpha Protocol to become public. But it doesn't exist, something Mike explicitly points out, explaining that the government can just deny the existence of the program and leave Leland out to dry. Which they do.

After Marburg's Sadistic Choice in Rome, pretty much every character in the game treats letting Madison die to defuse the bombs as the more moral choice, but the epilogue reveals that it actually did more to further Halbech's goal of passing tougher anti-terrorism laws. Similarly, saving Sung from assassination leads to China and Taiwan moving closer to war.

Though for the Taipei case, no matter what your choice China and Taiwan will move closer to war. It'll just vary in cause. As to Rome, there is a subtle hint that the results of defusing the bombs isn't quite in line with Halbech's goals: they were aiming to institute tougher anti-terrorism laws in the EU. The ending for Madison dying talks about Senator Darcy using Madison's death to push for tougher anti-terrorism laws in the USA.

Not So Different: Marburg is a bitter, betrayed Thorton 30 years later. Thorton points this out to Marburg's annoyance - or pleasure, if Thorton has gained his approval.

Obvious Beta: As is, unfortunately, to be expected of games from Obsidian, the numerous bugs and glitches at launch were a major reason for the poor reviews it received. Even after being patched, the game will occasionally flag the wrong player choices and there is extensive texture pop-in throughout the game.

Offscreen Teleportation: You thought the game stretches the suspension of disbelief when the bosses (and Michael) can survive HUGE numbers of bullets? Well how about the fact that Brayko can literally teleport; during the boss fight with him, when he triggers the huge flashlights that totally blind your vision, he can instantly appear somewhere else on the screen.

Notice This: The game has golden icons over collectibles and other interactive items such as ladders.

Oh, Crap!: You get one when Omen Deng reveals that he's actually trying to prevent Sung's assassination, and he thought that you were the killer. Meanwhile, the real assassin...

Omnicidal Neutral: A particularly hilarious — although not very subtle — gaming style consists in bulldozing your way through the game playing Mike as a perpetually angry Determinator who antagonizes everyone and keeps executing every single enemy who has the misfortune of being at his mercy, regardless of his/her faction. The only major character who he can't arrange the end of is Steven Heck, though some deaths are mutually exclusive. Considering Heck himself loves violence, he gets off most on Mike's rampage (aside from SIE, who will sometimes hum The Ride of the Valkyries while Mike blasts Marburg's villa.)

Interestingly, if you hack the computer in the locker room at Alpha Protocol after the intro sequence, you can read an e-mail from Westridge to the other agents telling them of the new arrival. He says they are "to refer to the new arrival as Michael Thorton," implying that we don't even know the protagonist's real name.

At one point, when discussing the possible 'deletion' of Alpha Protocol with Mina, he muses "Wonder if I'll get a new name."

Optional Sexual Encounter: There are four romance-able characters in this game. You get a perk for sleeping with each one and a different perk for having slept with all four. Alternately, you can get other perks for refusing to sleep with some of them individually and for sleeping with nobody. Your choice.

Optional Stealth: If the enemy doesn't see you, they don't try to blast your brains out, and if you manage to get right next to an enemy without being detected, you can take them down in one hit. But it is also perfectly viable to run-and-gun, and you will want some investment in combat skills for the unskippable boss fights.

You can do it if you want to. Good luck. The game even has a unique metric for tracking your kills: Orphans Created. Kill one guy, and you might create one, two, or three orphans per kill. It is entirely possible to get through the game without killing anyone, but it requires significant investment in tranq rounds (at about $5000 a box), a lot of luck/save scumming with random ammo pickups, or near-exclusive reliance on stealth and hand-to-hand combat. Note that tranquilizing a boss will still result in them being covered in blood when you talk to them, though (note that shooting a boss with normal bullets does not count as a kill: you have to choose to kill them).

The game also tracks non-lethal takedowns - in hospital costs!

You get perks for having a lot of non-lethal takedowns that make this easier to do as the game goes on. Among other things, you get major boosts to your endurance and your sneaking skills.

This is made easier by stealth and martial arts being massively overpowered in the mid- and late- game (especially once the perks start piling up), and hand-to-hand takedowns never count as kills.

There are a few non-optional kills, two manned vehicles and one person on foot (the first two at least are not counted in your kill stats). That's not counting ones your character kills in cutscenes no matter how you dealt with them.

Permanently Missable Content: It is incredibly easy to unintentionally skip over computer terminals, dossiers, equipment, or money unless you search every area very thoroughly. Doors will sometimes close and lock behind you once you pass into a new area, cutting you off from whatever was behind you, so it's a good idea to take a minute to search every location for items. This can be very important at times. For example, if you don't hack a certain computer in "Intercept Surkov at US Embassy" and fill out all of Brayko's dossier, you won't be able to question him about his connections to Surkov and thus expose him as Halbech's original contact and then break that line/recruit Surkov into your own network.

Playing Hard to Get: In a rare male-to-female inversion, the less interested Thorton is in SIE, the more interested she is in him.

Power-Up Letdown: The first level stealth armour actually lowers your Sound Dampening rating compared to casual clothes. You need the second level to even get parity, and the third, highest tier in order to exceed what casual clothes offer.

Precision F-Strike: While the game certainly does not want for swearing, Mike can engage in an absolutely glorious example of this against Marburg in Rome provided he has the proper intelligence on Marburg and Deus Vult.

Mike: Does Leland send you out for dry cleaning, too? Maybe shoot your chauffeur on the way? Chief of Security for Halbech - talk about a joke. Yeah, I know all about Deus Vult and that abortion of an op in the Middle East. Poor Agent Marburg believed dead...maybe wishing he was dead. Boo. Fucking. Hoo.

The Present Day: The game was set in 2009. Later changed to 2010, probably because the release date was pushed back.

Prestige Class: After completing the Saudi Arabia hub, you get to assign Mike his new Specialization. This determines which three skills you get to level all the way to 15, while the rest are stuck at 10 max.

Well, the whole cast really since this is the Spy world, but subverted...in all places...by Steven Heck. He not only knows about Halbech, Alpha Protocol, G22, and every other organization's dirty secrets but ALSO knew that Scarlet was the sniper in Taiwan...which he takes all in total stride and chooses to focus on making probably the longest run on conspiracy theory sentence you'll ever read.

What's even weirder is how Steven Heck's conspiracy e-mail isn't as crazy as you would think! While he does add some bits of crazy in there (going on about a one-world government and such), there's a part in it later about banks offering people loans they couldn't pay off, and using that to claim property when they didn't pay up. This eerily reflects many sentiments in real life concerning a recent event in American history where it was thought that banks had offered people loans they couldn't pay off for just that purpose.

Punch-Packing Pistol: Unlike the other three weapons who are fairly situational (shotguns are short-ranged and noisy, smgs are inaccurate and noisy, assault rifles require aiming time and can only target locations, not characters), the pistol is pretty much always useful (if not as useful as the specialist weapon). It's also the only weapon suited for stealth or nonlethal gameplay and once Chain Shot and AP bullets get involved the other three weapons can pretty much go home because a chain of critted headshots will sweep a room or kill a boss faster than any other weapon in the game.

It's a complicated spy drama, this sort of thing should be expected. For example, Alpha Protocol (the organization) is so heavily compartmentalized that no one person who works for it knows everything there is to know about the organization, and this means you could technically be on the run from them and still be able to use some of their hidden safehouses.

This is almost certainly the case with G22. In a few files or conversations, you may learn that one of Alpha Protocol's prior incarnations was called "G19" and since Alpha Protocol's hierarchy encourages compartmentalization and splinter groups, they are almost certainly one such off-shoot. Since you can potentially turn one against the other, it definitely becomes a case of Right Hand vs. Left Hand.

This trope is invoked directly when Mike introduces himself to Surkov.

"The right hand and the left hand aren't on speaking terms these days."

The entire Operation: True Heirs mission. Both you and Omen Deng are in Taipei to prevent President Sung's assassination, and both of you have been informed that the other is the assassin. You spend so much time fighting each other that the real assassin is able to get to Sung almost literally under your noses.

All the damn time. Save the girl or save a hundred from a museum bombing? Save the Taiwanese president or save hundreds from a riot?

And you can't even Take a Third Option except a very few times. For example, in the final mission, when given the choice between rescuing another character and saving the data... you can actually manage to do both. Go for the girl first.. You can also Take a Third Option in Brayko's mansion... but only if you're a Veteran, or have at least 8 points in Technical Aptitude or Stealth.

Made worse in Rome by the fact that you don't know if Marburg is pulling a Joker and lying about the respective locations of the things you can choose between. It turns out he's not; both Madison and the bombs are in the positions Marbug says they're in. No switcheroo here. It doesn't really make the choice any less sadistic, though.

No matter what your character's background is that makes him perfect for joining Alpha Protocol. But since you're just the fall guy...

Similarly, whichever personality Mike demonstrates in the first couple of missions, that's the reason Mina put her faith in him.

Also used so that your choices always lead to the same results. For example, no matter what you choose in the Sadistic Choice in Rome, Marburg will say he expected you to choose the other path.

Used in the Rising Star/Thorton Inc. ending. If you choose the Rising Star ending, Thorton handed Leland the information on a data disc. In Thorton Inc., however, Thorton reveals that he actually gave Leland one of his remote mines instead.

SecretMission Control: In the final mission, if you've done your homework and have a high enough reputation with a certain character, you can have Scarlet replace your handler partway through. This is the only time you can get her handler bonus.

Mike Thorton'stwitter feed, in addition to providing amusing tongue-in-cheek commentary on training at Alpha Protocol, as well as clues about gameplay features, often references other franchises. Some tweets from October and November of 2009 mention that he's heard Russian terrorists killed civilians in an airport, later noting that one of his superiors described it as "media bullshit."

According to Westridge's dossier, he was involved in an affair with a woman codenamed "Saffron."

The emails you get from tapping the NSA and CIA lookout posts in Rome have names appended to them that are references to spy characters from Tom Clancybooks: Chet (Nomuri), (John) Clark, and Ding (Chavez).

The boss fight with Brayko is one long homage to Tony Montana's cocaine-and-rage-fueled last stand from Scarface (1983).

Shown Their Work: Quite a bit of Stephen Heck's rambling is based on either actual events (Acoustic Kitty really happened) or conspiracy theories floating around in Real Life (like the one about the Federal Reserve).

You can do it several times. Punching Smug Snake Leland and banging his head against the table is especially awesome - see above.

Especially since the above was your last chance to avoid imprisonment or death. Or so Leland thinks.

"Dear Steven, please shut the fuck up."

Skippable Boss: Most bosses are plot-mandatory, but a few of them are skippable.

The most clear-cut example of this type of boss is with SIE in the mission "Investigate Weapons Shipment". At the end of the mission, you and SIE will be holding a discussion and you can either keep conversing with her (in which case she will not attack) or you can choose to attack her, triggering a boss battle against her. Humorously, you will actually get a better reputation with her if you do.

If you covertly sneak up to the bridge he is standing on and avoid detection, the game will trigger an auto-cutscene that shows Mike executing the Al-Samad Lieutenant (the first boss of the game).

You do not need to face the Triad Defectors for Hong Shi if you choose to (alternatively) investigate the G22 warehouse in Taipei.

You do not need to face Sis if you choose not to do the "Assault Lazo's Yacht" mission in Moscow.

You do not need to face Championchik if you either bring Brayko with you to the "Prevent Surkov's Escape" mission or if you miss out on the mission altogether by killing Brayko before he tells you of Surkov's involvement. A third option to skip it involves just simply agreeing to let Surkov go, which will end the mission right then and there.

The second phase of the boss fight against Conrad Marburg, but since it is easier classified as "skipped by default", it is more accurately a Bonus Boss.

If you relay the correct information to Marburg and have enough information, you can coax him into killing Parker.

The pistol is your standard pistol, though it is the only weapon compatible with a silencer and non-lethal ammunition, making it ideal for stealth playthroughs. It also has the Chain Shot ability, and if held on a target long enough, the bullet will go exactly where you want it to go with perfect accuracy and insane damage.

The shotgun manages to avert Short-Range Shotgun, especially if you both upgrade your skill with shotguns and equip weapon mods that reduce scatter. It can also blow people off their feet if you aim it long enough to get a critical hit or use its special ability.

Submachineguns fill in the bullet hose role, wielded in pairs and having the advantage of Bottomless Magazines when their special ability is activated. In addition, the guns do more damage per shot as they rack up more hits.

Assault rifles serve as an excellent all-around weapon but specialize in being the marksman rifle, having very high accuracy and doing excellent damage on critical hits. If aimed for long enough, the rifle's burst will shoot directly at whatever you're targeting, normally leading to a Critical Hit. The special ability makes you automatically snap to the nearest target.

You can't carry a Sniper Rifle on most missions, but a sniper rifle can be purchased and left in certain areas as a dead drop. A couple of missions start out with Mike packing a sniper rifle, including a dedicated Sniping Mission.

Rocket launchers are available for a couple of specific boss battles (Shaheed's Stryker and the helicopter in the final mission)

Gun turrets can be manned on certain missions, generally after killing their operators and taking over. Other automated turrets can be hacked. A tech specialist Mike can even hack turrets that are normally unhackable using Remote Hack.

Stealth Run: Possible for many missions in the game, but you need to be very patient. Stealth abilities are a means to an end - the end of running up to your opponents silently and choking them unconscious/cutting their throats. There are, however, certain missions which will mention whether or not you managed to completely evade detection and ghost the level, such as the CIA listening post in Rome. It is far easier to use exceptional stealth abilities to sneak around and knock out every guard without being detected, but entirely evading detection is difficult, if not impossible, on some levels.

In a rare few cases, a properly specc'd Mike can actually get out of the Sadistic Choice.

Relatively easy and fun one in Taipei: bug all the servers during the mission to bug G22 servers, and you can bluff your way out of deactivating all of them, thereby getting Albatross to trust you more and getting data off the G22 database.

Take That!: One of the Halbech Data emails you can find includes a mention of defective "Griffonhide" body armour, a thinly-veiled barb at the problem-plagued Real Life Dragon Skin armour.

Another Halbech email doesn't even bother trying to disguise the name of the Crusader mobile artillery platform.

Take Your Time: Most of the time, if there's no explicit onscreen timer, you can bum around exploring and waiting for cooldowns to complete in-mission and fly between safehouses as much as you want without penalty, regardless of what implied urgency there is. Prevent Surkov's Escape is one exception; you must do it immediately after the previous mission or miss out on it. It's not clear whether this is a bug or a Defied Trope.

Talking Is a Free Action: Averted and lampshaded. Westridge points out that the clock is still running during a conversation, which means both your ability timers and your endurance will restore if there's a conversation in the middle of a battle or a level. Unfortunately, conversations rarely crop up in the middle of combat, and you can't actually initiate them yourself either, so the opportunities to make use of this tactic are few at best.

Tap on the Head: Averted, and played with. Mike's non-lethal takedowns are usually quite a bit more than this. Some (like the karate chop to the throat) could even be considered a bit too much. Michael himself hangs a lampshade on this trope when you make Madison scared and angry enough to make her attack you.

Mike:"What are you doing? Hitting someone on the head to knock them out only works in movies."

Technical Pacifist: Thorton seems to enjoy making his non-lethal takedowns be extremely painful. Lampshaded by the description on the "Merciful" perk.

There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Depending on your choices, the final boss is either Yancy Westridge or Henry Leland. The former fights you with a series of miniguns, while the latter decides to use a rocket launcher.

This Is Not My Life to Take: Mike has the option to leave Surkov to Brayko if discover Surkov betrayed you, leave Brayko alive, and then take the final mission and chase Surkov all the way to the helipad. In this case it's an intentional case of sadism, as his death will become infinitely much more painful than if Mike just puts a bullet through his head.

Timed Mission: And it's a short timer, too: you have 30 seconds to kill a guy, pick a lock on a door, and escape before you get hit by a train.

Too Kinky to Torture: SIE. Her opinion of you increases if you attack and try to kill her. And afterwards sends you a very friendly and complimentary email about her scars from the battle and how much they hurt and how much she loves you for it.

Translation Convention: None of the non-American characters and enemies speak their own languages. In pretty much any background you pick, however, Mike speaks several languages, so he could just be translating on the fly. After all, the entire game, save for the last mission, is Mike telling the story to Leland after it happens while he is being interrogated. Since Michael is proficient in many languages, it is probable that he's just replacing all of the foreign dialog with English so Leland will understand.

Trojan Prisoner: Mike manages to infiltrate Alpha Protocol by surrendering to Darcy and making sure that he has an ally inside the Greybox who can help him escape.

Trick Bullet: Each primary weapon has two special ammunition types with unusual effects. For example, assault rifles have armor-piercing ammunition and subsonic ammo for silenced shooting, pistols have Tranquilizer Darts, and shotguns have incendiary shells.

The fact that she is actually working for another secretive organization doesn't mitigate the fact that Mina saved your life in Saudi Arabia and worked as your handler in Rome, Moscow and Taipei. So Mike certainly comes off as this when he keeps a low reputation with her, and especially this if he kills or abandons her in the endgame. Also, Madison went out on a limb trying to warn Mike of how Marburg wants him dead; so Mike is also this if he keeps a low reputation with her and acts rude to her. Doing enough of this will eventually cause Madison to surprise-attack you with a lamp and stun you with a stun gun as she storms out of your safehouse.

Sis, even though you would've spared her life to see this scene, will point her guns at you at the start of the "Contact Albatross" mission in Moscow. She, by helping you in future missions, can make up for this though.

If you beat up or intimidated Grigori, Surkov, despite you literally having just saved his life, will pull a gun on you without hesitation in the "Intercept Surkov at US Embassy" mission. Which is why crippling him right afterwards might feel oh-so cathartic to the player.

Vasquez Always Dies: Can be completely averted or played straight, or even inverted depending on your choices. In fact, it's entirely possible for the most Vasquez of the cast to be one of three people who even survive the game.

It gets worse: if someone dies from getting run over by the train and his allies are nearby, they'll come to check it out. And there's another train coming...

Villainous Crush: A high approval from one of your enemies can lead to this. If you always play Thorton as an icy cold, robotic professional throughout the whole game, Conrad Marburg will be one of the people who will like and respect you more. Note that Madison insinuates Marburg is gay.

Walk It Off: In addition to his normal health bar, Mike also has "endurance" — some combination of bulletproof armor and an iron will — that'll let him endure an infinite amount of bullets and blunt trauma... as long as he can he can take periodic 15-second breaks to let his endurance recharge. Health, on the other hand, does not recharge on its own, so you'll need to find lots and lots of convenient first aid boxes.

What Happened to the Mouse?: In the final mission, if you rescue Scarlet and have a high enough reputation to ask her to be your handler, your previous handler will disappear (though Heck will show up again near the end if you have a low reputation with Scarlet but ask her to help anyways.)

What the Hell, Hero? / What the Hell, Player?: Kill people or do overt actions, and you will get yelled at by various people for it, most commonly Mina if you're killing civilians or American agents, Albatross if you're being way too loud and obvious, or Madison if you're being a jerk to her. On the other hand, SIE or Steven will gleefully praise you for going on murder sprees.

"Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: During the end credits, one of the INN anchors will update you on what happened in the Middle East, Moscow, Taiwan, and Rome as a result of your choices.

Where the Hell Is Alpha Protocol: Deliberately invoked. No key personnel working for Alpha Protocol know where the "Graybox" base is, no matter how trusted they are. If you want to go the base or leave it, you get sedated for two full days while your body is transported. It's inefficient, but it makes the organization practically mole-proof. Presumably the ones doing the transporting aren't being told the truth about who they're picking up or dropping off, and presumably the very top guys at Alpha Protocol know where the base is, but that's about it. Leland, meanwhile, knows exactly where it is because Halbech built the whole compound. Obviously, the contractors responsible for its construction would know where it was, even if they wouldn't know what it was for.

With This Herring: Justified. Since Alpha Protocol doesn't officially exist, they can't give Mike supplies without risking someone tracing the supplies back to them and thus finding out that they exist. It also helps that Mike was supposed to be killed at the conclusion of Operation Desert Spear, so giving him supplies would just be a waste of money.

Worst News Judgment Ever: The news report about the Brayko fight if he lives? One of the funniest lines in the game, delivered deadpan.

Xanatos Gambit: By Halbech. Leland notes that no matter what Mike did in Rome or Taipei, the operations ended up as successes for Halbech. Even cutting off their supply in Moscow didn't do much more than slow them down.

This game keeps track of how many orphans you create due to the kills you rack up. It gets really sad when you realize that by killing only 15 people you managed to make 80 orphans.

And in a case of developer cleverness, who you kill actually influences how many orphans are left. For example, killing Al-Samad terrorists generates a lot of orphans, because Saudis have large numbers of children. Killing VCI, G22, or Alpha Protocol soldiers nets you very few orphans, because those sorts don't generally have families or children. Killing Chinese Secret Police troops nets one orphan per kill, because Chinese are legally restricted to only having one child per couple.

The game also keeps track of the medical bills for the mooks you take down non-lethally. You can inflict potentially millions of dollars in broken bones and battered bodies.

The writers love doing this in the news reports if you decide to cut deals with Nasri and/or Shaheed. If you let Nasri go instead of busting him, the next news report you see will be about a massacre on a U.S. Army base, with the implication that Nasri supplied the weapons. If you decide not to kill Shaheed, Al-Samad will launch a series of bombings in the West Bank. If you let both Nasri and Shaheed go, the bombings will claim hundreds of lives.

Averted totally. You want to have a negative reputation with everyone, including your handlers? Go right ahead. All it means in the long run is that you'll have to fight more of your battles without backup, and if you keep that up long you'll get perks for playing that way to help you keep playing that way.

If you want to kill Marburg, you need to bury the needle on that rep meter.

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